No more Kerry's...

[karynnj]

104. Senator Kerry nearly pulled off an incredible victory in 2004

All models that were based on the economy and the President's approval had Bush winning easily. In fact, in November 2003, he was better positioned than any President - including Reagan - for re-election all the way back to Eisenhower.

Democrats who say everybody hated Bush are as silly as Republicans claiming everybody hated Obama - they are considering their self selected friends as representative of the country.

Throw in that the media condoned a character assassination of both John Kerry and his wife, the Catholic Church in some areas made abortion the key issue for their parishioners, and the new McCain/Feingold law gave Kerry the same money to spend over 13 weeks that Bush had for 8. (McAuliffe picked an early date not considering this effect long before Kerry won the primaries.) and gave rise to the 527s such a the SBVT.

Still and all, he would have won if there were adequate voting machines in Ohio. The solution for 2008 and 2012 was early voting that owed part of its success to what happened in 2004 and the anger over that.

Obama did not win because he was a minority - he won because he was Obama and - in 2008, the winner of the Democratic primaries was almost certain to win the Presidency. In the general election, he was far better than he had to be.

Part of the problem is that you are looking at a very small number of data points - and obviously you are looking back less far than 1960. The fact is the last 4 ELECTED to the Presidency were Obama, Clinton, Carter, and JFK. (LBJ was elected only after he became President on the death of JFK) So, in the last 4 Presidents one was from MASSACHUSETTS. Had there been a fair election in 2004, 2 of the last 5 elected Democratic Presidents would have been from MA.